The Serpent's Tooth
by Wilusa
Summary: Nick Wolfe receives a parcel that may change his life. Part of my main universe.


  
  
DISCLAIMER: Highlander, Raven, and their familiar characters are the property of Davis/Panzer Productions. No copyright infringement is intended, no profit being made.  
  
Note: This is a Nick Wolfe story--a sequel to "The Name Game," "Lone Wolfe," and "Telegonus"; but it may actually have more impact for someone who hasn't read them.  
  
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_"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is  
To have a thankless child!"_  
**_King Lear_**  
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_September 1999_  
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Nick Wolfe tilted his head and upper body backward, ever so slightly. Shifted his weight onto his left foot. Cautiously lifted the right.   
  
Groped for a stair tread he couldn't see.  
  
Somewhere behind him, a child tittered.  
  
Nick's concentration wavered. And the armload of books he'd been steadying with his chin listed to one side. He made a desperate grab, but the result was predictable. The whole pile toppled onto--and mostly _down_--the stairs.  
  
He spun around quickly to make sure the youngster was all right.  
  
Yep. And it was Robbie, of course. _I might have guessed, from its being only one._  
  
A half-dozen doors popped open, on three lower floors. Six dark-skinned faces peered up at Nick, grinned, and retreated.  
  
Above him, on his own landing, a young white woman stepped out into the hall. "Robbie! Did you make Nick drop those books?" Sharon Silverman was trying to look and sound stern. But as usual, she wasn't succeeding.  
  
Aware Robbie was even less adept at looking and sounding innocent, Nick said quickly, "All my fault, Shar!" He winked at the gap-toothed six-year-old, and began gathering up the books.   
  
Hampered though he was by the black-hilted katana concealed under his otherwise unnecessary raincoat.  
  
"I c'n help." Robbie struggled to lift a tome that probably weighed half as much as he did. "I wanna be a lawyer, too."  
  
Sharon sighed. "Not a bad idea. Being a lawyer, that is. It can't pay less than free-lance writing!" That good-humored barb was aimed over her shoulder, back into the apartment she and Robbie shared with his would-be novelist father.  
  
Nick chuckled. The Silvermans were becoming good friends. "Okay, Robbie, but I'll take that one. You're just a beginning law student, and the little books come first, see?"   
  
Sharon went back inside, smiling, and Nick let Robbie "help" him carry the books, a few at a time, to his own door.  
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As always when they were together, he found it hard to take his eyes off the boy.   
  
_Straight brown hair, green eyes. So like me at that age. Even to being the only white kid in a building full of blacks._  
  
Nick had yet to see any sign that the African-American children shunned Robbie. It was more a case of his hanging back because he was self-conscious, and their not going out of their way to include him.  
  
_So like me.  
  
_He knew there was no real resemblance. The coincidence of Robbie's being a lone white among blacks had made him attach undue importance to the boy's coloring. But he couldn't dismiss the idea._  
  
Like me. Or...like the son I might have had, if I'd been a normal man. If a baby had come along in the first year or two, Lauren and I wouldn't have divorced.  
  
Of course, the odds were wildly against her becoming pregnant by a pre-Immortal. And if she had, it would have killed her. I can't wish for that.  
  
Can I?  
  
_He fought down the traitorous thought that Lauren could only have lived a century, at most. While any child of his would be Immortal..._  
  
Why did I have to learn Immortals can father children?  
  
And why, in the name of God, did I have to learn which one was my father?_  
  
He banished that monster's image from his mind, and with it the nagging fear that he might be like him. Focused instead on the man he would have chosen for the role. The friend who was financing his studies, and had pulled strings to get him into Harvard Law School.   
  
Who'd helped him believe in his own worth again.  
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***  
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_Duncan MacLeod colored with pleasure as he examined the sword Nick had purchased. "So you bought a katana because I use one? I'm flattered."  
  
Nick had lingering doubts. "I hope you don't think I'm, uh, slavishly imitating you. You really don't mind?"  
  
"No, I **really** don't. I'll give you a bit of advice, though. A katana's a fairly lightweight sword, easy to maneuver. That's a good thing. But in case you're ever separated from it and have to use something else, you should become proficient with heavier ones as well."  
  
Nick resisted the temptation to say, "I knew that."  
  
He'd expected the warning. But nothing could have prepared him for what came next.  
  
"Nick...do you still intend never to take another head?"  
  
"Yes." Nick nodded vigorously. "I'll defend myself, but this katana will never be christened with anyone's lifeblood."  
  
"I wish mine hadn't been." The Highlander took a deep breath. "You may think **I'm** being 'slavishly imitative,' Nick. But...for better or worse, you've made a convert. I've decided that **if you can live without killing, so will I**."_  
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***  
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Even now, Nick looked back on that day with stunned disbelief. A centuries-old warrior, best and bravest of his kind, humbly following the lead of a man who'd been Immortal less than three months? His self-esteem had soared. But at the same time, his respect for his self-described "convert" had become out-and-out hero worship.  
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"All done, Nick!" A beaming Robbie pressed the last two books into his hands.  
  
"That's great, pal." He tucked them under one arm and tousled the boy's hair, debating whether to ask Sharon if it was too near dinner to offer him ice cream.  
  
He got his answer when she came out again, lugging a parcel whose size and shape vaguely suggested golf clubs. "Robbie, time for dinner. No, don't argue--get in there!  
  
"And, Nick, this came for you a couple hours ago. Needed a signature, but we knew you'd be home soon, so Mark signed your name. Hope that's okay."  
  
"It's better than okay." Raising his voice, he continued, "Don't know what I'd do if Mark got a job--only kidding, Mark!" This as the writer appeared in his doorway, feigning a murderous glare.  
  
Nick exchanged more banter with the Silvermans, but his smile faded as soon as they'd closed their door. He took the last few books into his apartment, dumping them unceremoniously on top of the others. Got rid of his coat as well. Then he carried the parcel in, much more carefully.  
  
Its weight confirmed his guess: it didn't contain golf clubs. And he knew how dangerous it could have been, in an apartment where a curious six-year-old might have opened it.  
  
Who would have sent him such a thing?  
  
_Not Mac.  
  
Amanda?_  
  
If Robbie had seen his friend at that moment, the scowl on Nick's face would have given him nightmares.  
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As he began peeling off the wrappings, he noticed for the first time that the return address was in England.  
  
_Janet? She's connected with a museum, and she knows about my "hobby."  
  
_But no, his British girlfriend couldn't be responsible. The sender was clearly identified as a law firm.  
  
He knew, in a general way, what the still-swathed object was. _I don't need one!_ So he laid it aside with distaste, and turned his attention to the typewritten cover letter.  
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**Dear Mr. Wolfe:  
  
Our client specifically instructed that you not be invited to a formal reading of his will, even if we were able to locate you quickly. We do ask that you contact us, regarding a sizable estate to which you are sole heir...  
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**Sole heir? There had to be some mistake.  
_.  
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_**He wanted this to be mailed to you...  
  
We did not learn you had been living in Paris, near where our client passed away, until you had left...  
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**.  
He belatedly saw an enclosure, an envelope addressed in a bold longhand to "Nicholas Wolfe." Out of patience with the lawyers' rigmarole, he dropped their letter and ripped open the envelope.  
  
He'd been standing at his desk. But as he read, his legs turned to jelly. He guessed at the location of a chair and crumpled into it, eyes still fixed on the page.  
  
If the chair had been inches further away, he would have landed on the floor.  
  
And never noticed.  
  
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**5 July 1987.  
  
My dear Nicholas,  
  
I write this letter on your twenty-first birthday, but I have no idea at what stage of life you'll read it. If you're still a young man, you'll find it hard to understand why I bequeath you--along with my financial assets--a sword. But I hope with all my heart that you'll keep it. Trust me, its significance will become clear in time.  
**_  
_**Whatever your age and present circumstances, you know you were an adopted child. I'm deeply grateful for the accident of fate that gave you to a black family; it assured that the adoption itself cannot possibly have been kept secret.  
  
Nicholas, I am your biological father. There's no doubt. Your birth mother was a good, loving woman named Jane Ibbott. She died after delivering you, but she was destined for a short life in any case... That statement may strike you as heartless, but it's true. And I loved her, to the extent I could.  
  
Most of my love was reserved for you.  
  
I'm a medical doctor. I knew, while you were still in the womb, that you would be a very special child. And I suspected the birth would be difficult. For reasons you will one day understand--if you don't now--I was in a quandary as to whether it should take place in a hospital.  
**_  
_**In the end, I was spared the decision. (Yes, it would have been mine. I make no apology for that.) You came, not prematurely, but suddenly. I brought you into the world, and used all my skill in a futile attempt to save your mother.  
  
I wanted a child, as fervently as any man ever has. I had cherished that dream for a long, long time. But if I'd kept you with me, your life would have been in constant danger. Danger from my enemies...perhaps from the very one who finally killed me. For I most assuredly have not died a natural death.  
  
I thought I'd put sentimentality behind me long ago. But it was a sentimental impulse that took me to St. Nicholas' Church. I myself was found in a church as an infant, and given a good home.  
**_  
_**I want you to know I didn't abandon you. I laid you at the center of the altar rail, a squirming bundle any churchgoer would be sure to see and investigate. And even though I'd left your mother's body unattended, I hid behind a pillar for hours, waiting...till that sudden summer cloudburst brought Maria Wolfe into our lives.**_  
  
_**If no one had come in another hour, I would have taken you away with me. Perhaps even interpreted it as a sign that I**_ **was** _**meant to raise you. How different, I wonder, might our destinies have been?  
**_  
_**As it was, I followed your progress for years--high school, pro boxing, law school. Until recently, when it became too painful. And too nerve-wracking, wondering when...a certain thing would happen.  
  
If this letter I'm leaving with my solicitors has not been replaced by a later one, it means you and I never met as equals; I never had the chance to tell you what you are to me. I regret that, Nicholas. I can't expect you to mourn the loss of a father you never knew.  
**_  
_**But perhaps, through my oldest possession, you**_ **will** _**come to know me...**_   
_**Use it wisely, son. Use it well.  
  
Yours in the one bond that can never be broken,  
Julian Heller  
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**_.  
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_The paper slipped from suddenly slack fingers, and Nick watched it drift down to the desk, seemingly in slow motion.  
  
He recalled another moment he'd experienced in slow motion...  
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***  
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_He swung Amanda's sword with all his strength, encountering so little resistance that he thought he'd missed.  
  
But then he felt the stinging splatter of blood. Saw the severed head describing a lazy arc in the air, falling, falling...  
  
He couldn't look at the head and keep his sanity. So he looked instead at the sword that had flown out of the Immortal's hand, and hung, eerily suspended, before him.  
  
A killing weapon, yes. But also an ornament for a gentleman, with its gold-gleaming hilt and elaborate grip. Unlike Amanda's austerely functional blades, this one evoked the image of an earlier day. A time when swords were worn openly and proudly--not hidden in the linings of laughably long coats, stashed behind sofas, or buried under blankets in the back seats of cars.  
  
He stared at it, mesmerized. Until he heard the crack of lightning, saw the sky awash with flames.  
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***  
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_He snapped back to the present, only to find himself reaching out for that phantom sword.   
  
Muttering an oath, he snatched up the letter instead.  
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He meant to rip it to shreds. Yet five minutes later it was still intact, still in his hand.  
  
He realized now that from the moment he'd learned his father's identity, he had closed his mind to the possibility that Heller might have known._  
  
_But he _had_ known. Known, and cared, and claimed to love him.  
  
Love?   
  
_Bullshit!_  
  
Still...he reread the letter, slowly and thoughtfully. With new appreciation of the carefully crafted passages that would have puzzled a pre-Immortal, but spoke volumes to him.  
  
_"She died after delivering you, but she was destined for a short life in any case..."  
  
_Meaning his mother was mortal. He'd known that only mortal women could bear Immortal children, but he suspected a mere handful of people were in on the secret.  
  
He'd also known that the mothers always died. So he had no reason to doubt Heller's claim that he'd tried to save Jane Ibbott.  
  
_"I knew, while you were still in the womb, that you would be a very special child."  
  
_In other words, Heller had known even then that Nick was a pre-Immortal.  
  
_"And too nerve-wracking, wondering when...a certain thing would happen."  
  
_No question what that meant.  
  
_"But perhaps, through my oldest possession, you **will** come to know me..."  
  
_Nick didn't like to think about _that_ one.  
  
Some references held meanings for the younger man that his father could not have anticipated.  
  
_"I hid behind a pillar for hours, waiting...till that sudden summer cloudburst brought Maria Wolfe into our lives."  
  
_Mention of the "sudden summer cloudburst" proved beyond a doubt that Heller wasn't lying: he really had cared enough to wait in the church.   
  
_And I only know about that downpour because Aaron resented having an adopted--white--kid brother, and wouldn't let me or anyone else forget the story.   
  
_That wasn't the only irony._  
  
"If no one had come in another hour, I would have taken you away with me. Perhaps even interpreted it as a sign that I **was** meant to raise you. How different, I wonder, might our destinies have been?"  
  
_How, indeed? Nick couldn't suppress a shudder._  
  
"But if I'd kept you with me, your life would have been in constant danger. Danger from my enemies...perhaps from the very one who finally killed me."  
  
_And that, of course, was the heart of it. _"The one who finally killed me."   
  
Killed, killed,** killed...**_**** The word echoed and reechoed through the dark recesses of Nick's mind. He cringed in his chair, hunkered down--trying instinctively to make himself smaller, to hide from the hounds of conscience.  
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***  
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_He swung Amanda's sword with all his strength...  
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***  
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Damn!_ He jerked himself up straight, and confronted the memory.  
  
He'd regretted killing Heller within hours of doing it, for pragmatic reasons. The corrupt doctor should have been forced to stand trial. Nick's killing him had blown any chance of ending the black market in human organs--a cause for which Lauren had given her life.  
  
His recognition of the error he'd made--and the potential for error in any killing, the ugly finality of it--had led him to vow he would never kill again. Not, at least, intentionally. Immortals could only be killed by a deliberate choice; so Nick's vow meant he would never take another head.  
  
But he hadn't doubted for a moment that Heller had deserved to die.  
  
He'd been shaken to the depths of his soul when he learned that the man he killed had been his father. Horror at the _idea_ of patricide gnawed at him through long, sleepless nights. And he wrestled with morbid fears that he might be a "bad seed," more like the mercenary--and merciless--Heller than the noble MacLeod._  
  
_But he still hadn't doubted that Heller had deserved to die.  
  
Until now.  
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He closed his eyes and heard a cacophony of voices. Tried to separate them...  
  
One voice was young, earnest, idealistic. In his yearning dreams, it always would be.  
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***  
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_Lauren had come to Nick, bruised and bedraggled, after escaping a gunman who'd killed her legal assistant and a star witness. She knew who was responsible: "An organization that sells human organs on the black market. They kill convicts, and POWs, and the mentally incompetent, and they gut them. Heller's a real sick bastard... Dr. Julian Heller. I wish someone would cut **his** heart out.  
  
"I don't want him for two murders. I want him for two **thousand**.  
  
"Just keep me alive, just until the trial. Until I can put Julian Heller away for life."  
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***  
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_Two thousand murders. When she'd only known of Heller's crimes during the last few years. _  
  
_Lauren's voice gave way to another, a voice that had come to grate on him. It had too often told him lies or half-truths, or offered lame excuses for not having dealt with problems when they arose, centuries ago.  
  
Now it throbbed with fury...over a wrong that dated from the mid-seventeenth century.  
_.  
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***  
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"He meant to burn me at the stake, Nick! The most agonizing kind of temporary 'death'--it's driven some Immortals mad.  
  
"And I couldn't rescue Susanne, though I did save her from being burned alive. Have you ever had to kill a friend out of mercy? I hope to God you'll never learn how that feels.  
  
"Heller didn't even have the excuse of believing we were witches. Our real crime was unauthorized practice of medicine--and all he could prove was midwifery. We were doing more than that, but only because he would have let the poor die without treatment. All he ever cared about were his fees.  
  
"We'd done nothing to injure him. He wanted to make an example of us, before other herbalists got the idea of actually competing with him.  
  
"And what he did to us was pure sadism."  
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***  
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Why didn't you have the guts to go back with a sword and challenge him, Amanda? If you'd killed him then, I wouldn't exist--but legions of innocent victims, or their descendants, would_.**   
  
**Another voice chimed in...and Nick realized it was Heller's, damning himself by his own words._  
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***  
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Clutching his gun in one hand and Amanda's sword in the other, Nick moved with catlike stealth among the outbuildings of Heller's mostly-for-show farm. He knew the Immortal was nearby, relying on his skill with his own sword--and knowledge of the terrain--to give him the advantage.  
  
Did he have a gun, too? If he did, there was no reason to doubt he'd use it...  
  
Suddenly, Heller's blade slashed out from a doorway. Nick went down, firing a volley of shots.  
  
Then the flurry of action was over, as quickly as it had begun. The opponents resumed their cat-and-mouse game; Nick, at least, had no wounds to nurse.  
  
"Listen, Wolfe!" Did Heller hope he'd give away his position by replying? "I'm sorry about your wife." A pause. Then the mocking continuation: "I would have used her for spare parts, but I think her heart was broken anyway."  
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***  
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_ Moaning, Nick opened his eyes.   
  
Yes, a case could be made for Heller's having been a blight on the face of the earth. But the letter seemed to show another side of his character.  
  
Had he been capable of tender feelings? For even one person--the one who'd become his executioner?  
  
An unwanted thought surfaced. Based on all Nick had read, Duncan MacLeod's father had once been so violent and unprincipled that Heller seemed a saint by comparison. Yet Methos hadn't been beyond redemption. He still wasn't a fighter for justice like his son, but he had evolved into a decent human being, who minded his own business and sought only to survive. He'd spent centuries as a doctor--honored the Hippocratic Oath, gone for two hundred years without taking a head. And in the aftermath of MacLeod's Dark Quickening, Methos had taken heroic risks to save him.  
  
_Centuries as a doctor..._ Nick didn't doubt Amanda's claim that even three hundred years ago, Julian Heller had been interested only in his fees. But had he, in his youth, become a doctor from purer motives? There were easier ways to make money--and more of it.  
  
Might those original motives have come to the fore again? Perhaps even through his son's influence? _Mac has renounced killing because of me._   
  
_My father claimed to love me, but he knowingly murdered the woman I loved...  
  
_Did he?  
  
_And he would have killed me...  
  
_Would he?  
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He considered those questions one at a time.  
  
_Have to admit, he can't have known about Lauren's connection with me when he ordered the hit... No, that excuse won't fly. He did know by the time he killed her.  
  
But Lauren was my **ex**-wife. He had no way of knowing I still loved her.  
  
Remember his exact words. Cruel, cutting words. But what were they?  
  
"I would have used her for spare parts, but I think her heart was broken anyway."  
  
And he said of my mother, "I loved her, to the extent I could. Most of my love was reserved for you."  
  
"The extent I could..." Hell, it had probably been centuries since he'd really cared deeply for a mortal. He couldn't let himself care, or he'd be crushed by their deaths, over and over again._  
  
_And even though he knew how young I was, he unconsciously expected me to think and act the way he did. So he took for granted that I'd either deserted Lauren, or cheated on her and driven her to divorce. He assumed I'd treated her like dirt while we were together, and my concern now was sheer hypocrisy.  
_  
One question answered. Murder was still murder, but Heller hadn't foreseen how it would ravage him. He'd never understood.  
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Would his father have killed him?  
  
_What would have happened, legally, after Lauren's death?  
  
_Heller couldn't have been prosecuted for the murder: he'd given her an overdose of heroin. Even though the police knew what had really happened, they would have been unable to prove Lauren hadn't killed herself accidentally. Her body could have been dumped where it was by druggie friends unwilling to get involved.  
  
The prosecution in the organ-theft trial would have been forced to request a postponement, so a new lead counsel could be brought up to speed. Even if that were not the case, the jurors--who weren't sequestered--would have heard too much speculation by then. So the jury would have been dismissed, and it would have been next to impossible to impanel a new one in Paris.  
  
All of which meant Heller had no need to leave town. Yet there was evidence he'd been preparing to do just that.  
  
Nick couldn't believe he'd feared Amanda. A male Immortal with his arrogant streak would have expected to take her out easily. He might have been making a fatal mistake, but he wouldn't have ducked the fight.  
  
No, he'd wanted to avoid a confrontation with Nick. Quite aside from their relationship, Nick posed a unique threat. He knew how to kill him, and--unlike most Immortals--had no compunction about shooting first and then taking his quarry's head.  
  
But Nick knew now that he'd been half out of his mind. If Heller had been willing to use the same tactics as he--against a foe who, after all, would have had no expectation of surviving a "fatal" bullet wound--his experience and cooler head would have carried the day.   
  
Instead, he'd tried to flee._  
  
He didn't want to kill me. And he wouldn't have--not in the permanent sense. Like it or not, I'm sure of that now.   
  
He couldn't sense me at any great distance. But if he'd succeeded in sneaking up on me in that barnyard, as I did on him, he would have run me through. Dealt me my first death...and walked away.  
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_Nick dropped the letter and buried his face in his hands.  
  
**_I need to believe he was a monster!_**_  
  
But I can't.  
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_He sat motionless as night fell. But when he finally took note of it, he heaved himself out of the chair with a grunt, turned on some lights, and began pacing.  
  
Would he accept his unlooked-for inheritance? A sizable estate...  
  
_I'd be a fool not to. Heller's wealth will assure that Mac's loan can be repaid, even if I don't live long.  
  
And I can use the rest of it for good, help in the fight **against **some of the things my father stood for...  
  
So why can't I shake this feeling that I'll be profiting from my crime?  
  
_That painful thought reminded him that the parent he'd killed had left him more than money. Almost against his will, he found his gaze straying to the tissue-wrapped sword.   
  
Which Heller hadn't had a chance to use, when Nick had dropped down on him from above.  
  
He knew victorious Immortals sometimes took weapons as trophies. Other swords were carried off by the Watchers. But he hadn't had the stomach to touch this one, nor had Amanda. And the fiery Quickening must have sent the Watchers scurrying in terror.  
  
He reached for it--and pulled his hand back--three times before he finally began removing the tissue.   
  
Then he saw it.  
  
And dropped it as if it had burned him.  
  
He heard a moan that could only have been his own.  
  
The blade was as he remembered. But the golden hilt--an alloy, of course--was marred by a half-dozen irregular patches of black. Savage scars left by the flames that had consumed its owner.  
  
_I'll never be allowed to forget, will I?_  
  
He found himself torn between regret at damage to a thing of beauty, and a sense that the defacement was oddly appropriate.  
  
At last he picked it up. Tested the grip, hefted it.  
  
It felt more natural than any other he'd tried. Heavier than his katana, but still light enough to be used with one hand--freeing the other to wield, perhaps, a dagger.  
  
He executed a series of thrusts and parries.  
  
And reflected, guiltily, that the sword seemed made for him.  
  
_"But perhaps, through my oldest possession, you **will** come to know me..."  
_  
_"My oldest possession." Could my father have owned this before he became Immortal? When he was as young as I am, as idealistic?  
  
Perhaps it **can** help me to know him..._  
  
Of course, he realized another meaning had been implicit in Heller's words.   
  
In the supreme irony, the old Immortal had hoped his son would avenge him.   
  
And win a different kind of "knowledge" of his sire.  
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********************  
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In the weeks that followed, Nick left the katana at home and carried his new sword everywhere. A blade he had grimly named "Serpent's Tooth." He used only that in practice.  
  
Solely, he told himself, to become comfortable with its weight.  
  
He rigorously censored his waking thoughts.  
  
But in dreams, night after night, he prowled the banks of the Seine, gold-hilted sword shimmering in the moonlight, as he stalked the beautiful Immortal who held his father's Quickening.  
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(The End)  
_   
_


End file.
